Ethel Ohlin Bradford

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Some Trivial Thoughts

If you’re even halfway familiar with my words, you know that my mind veers back and forth between serious thoughts, to utter trivia. And today, it’s trivia, but that’s ok, for trivia can be fun.

Okay, so for a moment stop what you happen to be doing, and fold your arms. That’s right, just fold your arms, and now look at them.

One arm is on top with its hand folded under the other arm. You didn’t have to even think about it. You just did it. But now, try to fold your arms the other way, with the other arm on top and with its hand tucked under. And note that I said, try to fold your arms the ‘other’ way. And the key word is try.

That’s a ‘different story’. And it’s bewildering, for it just won’t work. Oh, I know you can do it, as I have, but tt takes much thought and effort, and when you get it done, it doesn’t feel right, at all… It’s awkward. Your arms get tangled and it’s a mess.

And then, when you get your arms untangled, and are laughing about the whole thing, follow me. and fold your hands. The same way you did as a school child when the teacher told you to put your hands on the desk and fold them. Done it a million times, haven’t you?

Well, do so again, and it’s so easy, with one thumb sitting snugly on top, and the other tucked beneath. And now, of course, you know what I’m going to say, but now re-fold them, but do it so the other thumb is on top. And before you know it, for your fingers are mixed up.

I’ve asked others to do these two simple acts, and they’ve all ended up looking at me with surprise, at how difficult it is, and some have told me they tried them with their own family, and it’s always the same result. And now their kids are asking their friends to do the same. Kids love this kind of thing. But it’s just as surprising for oldsters like me.

At first I thought the answer was with being right or left handed. But it doesn’t, for I’ve found one right hander does it one way and the very next right hander does it the other, and so on. All I know is that we’re queer creatures of habit or instinct and who’s to know which is which.

We all have our own oddities. I’m right handed and can’t sign my name with my left hand. And yet . .. when my first computer was installed at my desk, my son, who was doing the chore, was surprised that I had to have the Mouse and its pad on the left side. And said, “I didn’t know your were left-handed”, and of course, I’m not. But there are chores I just automatically do with my left rather than my right hand.

I can’t deal a deck of cards with my right hand, but easily with the left. Just as I’m also a leftie when putting plates, knives, forks and the food on the table for a meal. Such tasks are not only awkward for me, but I don’t do it all well if I try them with my right.

It’s said that men always dress by always putting the same leg into their trousers first, and I don’t know, but for myself, I pull on my hosiery right leg first, and then, hosier in place, I swear it’s my left shoe I then choose to don first.

My friend LaRee cut her lawn a certain way, leaving there a pattern she knew by heart, and her husband one day cut the lawn for her, using his own pattern. and LaRee, believe me or not, waiting until he was gone, did the entire lawn again, just so the pattern was ‘correct’. Seeing the other just drove her ‘crazy’.

These bits of trivia are not earth shattering but once you begin observing them, it’s hard to stop. Are we prisoners of habit, or is it something bred in our genes. But pass them along to your kids. They’ll love them.